[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 200 (Wednesday, December 19, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7918-S7921]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  AGRICULTURE IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2018

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, the 2018 farm bill was a true bipartisan 
victory, and I am very proud of the historic vote Senator Roberts and I 
were able to achieve on this bill. It serves as an example of how 
Congress, on a bipartisan basis, can produce important legislation 
through debate and compromise. On the Agriculture, Nutrition, and 
Forestry Committee, we have a long history of working together to 
ensure a strong safety net for farmers and for families. This bill 
continues that long-standing, bipartisan tradition. I know that the 
chairman did not get everything he wanted in this bill, and neither did 
I. I would have preferred to make more progress on reforming farm 
payments, a cause championed by my friend, Senator Grassley, and on 
improving the adequacy of benefits in the Supplemental Nutrition 
Assistance Program, known as SNAP, and our other food assistance 
programs, but, overall, this is a good bill that protects and advances 
many critical food and farm policies that deserves the strong 
bipartisan support it received.
  The nutrition title of this bill is no exception. We know that SNAP 
is largely working, and spending has been declining as more people get 
back to work and get off SNAP the right way. We also know that it is 
our job to make sure the program is working as intended and that we 
address any integrity issues that arise. That is why we included 
important improvements to SNAP program operations, oversight, and 
employment and training in this bill. In this conference report, we 
have protected SNAP, made modest, but important improvements, and 
excluded the very harmful House provisions that would have cut SNAP by 
more than $20 billion over 10 years, taken food assistance away from at 
least 2 million people, and imposed new, unworkable mandates on States.
  I wish we also could have made more progress in expanding SNAP 
eligibility, benefits, and access in ways that would address food 
insecurity and help low-income Americans who are struggling to make 
ends meet. That said, we were able to include an important benefit 
improvement that will provide additional SNAP benefit to certain 
homeless households that, despite lacking a permanent nighttime 
address, may still incur expenses for shelter for temporary 
accommodations or to stay with friends or family. The program's $143 
homeless shelter deduction will now be available in all States, 
including in my home State of Michigan, and will keep pace with 
inflation each year. If a

[[Page S7919]]

household could get more SNAP benefits by claiming the regular shelter 
deduction, it must continue to be able to do so, but for the many 
households that have had difficulty proving the amount of their shelter 
expenses, this change will enhance their SNAP benefits and reduce 
paperwork for both the household and for State agencies. Specifically, 
the conference report allows, for example, when a homeless household 
incurs a cost for shelter, but does not have paperwork available to 
prove the expense, an eligibility worker to provide the standard 
homeless shelter deduction based on her or his assessment of the 
households' claims about the expense. The worker can examine the 
totality of the household's circumstances and provide an appropriate 
deduction based on the information that is available.
  Another improvement we include in this conference agreement is a 
requirement that USDA reassess the adequacy of SNAP's Thrifty Food 
Plan, TFP, by 2022 and every 5 years subsequently. The TFP is the 
foundation for SNAP benefit levels and is meant to reflect the actual 
food costs that households face in obtaining a nutritionally adequate 
diet. In recent years, mounting research evidence has found that the 
TFP is out of step with actual food purchasing practices and 
nutritional recommendations and that, for the vast majority of 
households, SNAP benefits are inadequate when considered in tandem with 
income that the household is assumed to have available for food. In 
part, the low SNAP benefits are a result of USDA in the past requiring 
that revisions not increase the cost of the TFP. Over many years, the 
factors behind food costs have evolved, i.e., purchasing and 
consumption patterns, dietary guidelines, women's work patterns, and 
transportation costs. Our intention for the future is that USDA not be 
compelled to achieve a cost-neutral revision to the TFP, but that it 
bring to bear the best scientific evidence about the appropriate cost 
of a ``thrifty,'' but nutritionally adequate food basket. We recognize 
that this may mean that SNAP benefits need to be adjusted as a result 
of the reassessment.
  We also recognize that food insecurity is an ongoing issue amongst 
military families. While the conference report did not include a 
critical change I support related to the treatment of the Base 
Allowance for Housing in SNAP, I want to encourage USDA to look for 
ways to address military hunger. Specifically, I ask that USDA 
designate an office or liaison within the Office of the Secretary of 
Agriculture to coordinate with Department of Defense to gather data 
about currently serving military families experiencing food insecurity. 
I would ask USDA to gather key information such as estimates of SNAP 
participation by currently serving military families; estimates of 
currently serving military families experiencing food insecurity, but 
not able to qualify for SNAP benefits because the inclusion of their 
Basic Allowance for Housing allowance as counted income; estimates of 
currently serving military households with low household incomes--below 
200 percent of federal poverty line; below 185 percent; below 130 
percent; and estimates of participation in WIC by military households 
in comparison to SNAP.
  Food consumption and buying behaviors are not the only changes 
affecting SNAP. Technology, both in administration and in the retail 
landscape, also continue to evolve. The conference report makes several 
important changes to help USDA to modernize to address consumer 
preferences and to help States to continue to strengthen their 
stewardship of SNAP.
  First, we expand a pilot from the last farm bill, known as the 
National Accuracy Clearinghouse, NAC, to be a nationwide program within 
a few years. The NAC gives States tools to ensure that individuals do 
not simultaneously receive SNAP benefits in two or more States by 
conducting cross-State matches of SNAP applicants and participating 
households and setting up a process for States to resolve instances of 
apparent dual participation. An evaluation of the NAC pilot found that, 
although duplicate participation is small--less than 0.02 percent of 
SNAP participants--it is feasible for States to conduct a match to 
identify and prevent duplicate participation.
  We know that duplicate participation, when it does occur, is rarely 
intentional fraud, but rather is a result of a household or household 
member simply moving from one State to another and not successfully 
disenrolling in their previous home State. This could be caused by 
households not being able to get through to a call center to report the 
move or a State not taking the proper subsequent action to close the 
case or remove the household member. The NAC helps States to address 
this issue more effectively using technology, saving money within SNAP 
in the process. As with any error, without evidence of a client's 
intent to defraud the program, States should assume that dual 
enrollment discovered through the NAC is unintentional.
  Because duplicate participation is so rare and a household's need for 
food assistance may be urgent, the conference committee expects that 
USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, FNS, and States will establish 
procedures for the NAC that will not interfere with current application 
and enrollment procedures, particularly the speedy processing of 
applications. Some States are able to process matches in ``real time'' 
or provide same-day or other fast service to SNAP applicants. Given 
that only a tiny fraction of applications are expected to result in a 
positive match via the NAC, we expect that States will often run the 
match after approving SNAP.
  In developing the NAC provision, the members were sensitive to recent 
problems with data security breaches and the risk that any large data 
set may be a target for hacking, identity theft, or other ``big data'' 
goals that are not associated with the administration of SNAP. The 
Conference Committee intended that the NAC have state-of-the art 
privacy and security protections and that the information shared across 
States as part of the NAC be used only for the purpose of identifying 
and preventing dual participation in SNAP. We expect FNS to exercise 
strong oversight of any contractors that are engaged in the operation 
of the NAC to ensure that contractor is not using information about 
SNAP participants for any other purposes.
  Finally, as part of the NAC, we expect that FNS will be developing 
procedures for standardizing, streamlining, and in some cases 
automating cross-State communications. We urge FNS to ensure that these 
processes provide SNAP recipients with services that take into account 
the difficulty they may have in navigating cross-State communications. 
For example, we expect FNS's policies to include procedures to help 
households appeal and resolve decisions across State boundaries. If a 
noncustodial parent applies for benefits on behalf of a child who lives 
with the other parent, it may be difficult for the custodial parent to 
know how to navigate an eligibility decision made in another State 
where the individual does not reside.
  Similarly, when overpayments occur because of duplicate 
participation, we expect the cross-State claims process to take into 
account difficulties households may have had in closing their case in 
their prior State of residence. For example, if a State was delinquent 
in closing the case after the household reported the change, or the 
household could not get through on the telephone to report the change 
because of a major problem in call center operations, this should be 
considered an agency error, and households should be given 
consideration in the claims establishment and collection process. If 
the household did not use the benefits in the State in which they 
previously resided because they were receiving SNAP where they live now 
and simply could not close their old case because of a problem with the 
States' reporting procedures we assume they will not be held 
responsible for repaying an overpayment.
  Another provision of the bill offers States an opportunity to 
collaborate with FNS to establish longitudinal data sets about SNAP 
participation. The goal of this provision is in some ways the opposite 
of the NAC. Where the NAC aims to share very specific identifying 
information about SNAP applicants and participants to prevent dual 
participation, the conference agreement specifically prohibits the 
longitudinal database from collecting or sharing any personal 
identifying information. Instead, the information in these data sets 
will be used only for research purposes to study the characteristics of 
SNAP participants over time

[[Page S7920]]

and improve SNAP program operations. Because most data that is 
available about SNAP participants looks just at 1 particular month, 
these data sets will fill in a gap in our understanding of SNAP and 
allow States, FNS, and other researchers to learn about patterns of 
participation and other factors such as work experience and income 
volatility.

  The SNAP quality control, QC, system, which measures SNAP payment 
accuracy, has recently been the subject of oversight by USDA's Office 
of Inspector General. The Senate Agriculture Committee also held a 
hearing to review problems with the quality control system. This led 
FNS to conduct a subsequent investigation and revise its guidance and 
processes. We acknowledge that FNS and States have made substantial 
progress in addressing the problems these investigations exposed. The 
conference agreement requires FNS to issue regulations to codify the 
quality control improvements and other changes in order to ensure the 
statistical validity of the measures the QC system produces. The 
conferees are not expecting any major changes in how the QC system 
measures payment error. We expect that the basic tenets of the quality 
control measures will remain. For example, a payment error will be 
determined based on the outcome of the eligibility decision, rather 
than on the State's procedural compliance, and that the certification 
and reporting rules under State and Federal policy will be taken into 
account in assessing payment errors.
  The QC system needs to balance the twin goals of payment accuracy and 
program access. We urge FNS to not include changes to the QC system 
that would make it harder for individuals to participate in SNAP if 
they live in unstable conditions as a result of them moving more often, 
do not have a permanent address, or if they are likely to be more 
``error prone'' because they have variable earnings that are more 
difficult for States to track.
  The conferees are aware that the OIG and USDA both identified uneven 
Federal application and enforcement of quality control rules, as well 
as State practices, as an underlying cause of the problems identified 
in the investigations and reviews. We expect that improving quality 
control reviews will involve a more rigorous Federal rereview and more 
consistent practices across FNS regions.
  The conferees chose not to include a House provision that would 
eliminate the quality control error tolerance threshold. Currently set 
at $37, this is the threshold below which error amounts do not count 
toward the State's error rate. The threshold encourages States to focus 
their efforts on larger, costlier errors. Minor mistakes in calculating 
benefit amounts are not a threat to SNAP integrity and are 
understandable, given the volatility in the lives of many low-income 
households. If States were encouraged to increase their efforts to 
drive SNAP errors in every case to zero, some States experience shows 
they likely would respond by requiring more paperwork, which would be 
burdensome and inefficient.
  Finally, the conference report eliminated SNAP bonus payments to 
States out of concern that that they may have contributed to State 
practices that introduced bias into the quality control process. The 
conferees continue to think that customer service measures, such as 
measures of timeliness and program access, are important indicators of 
SNAP's success, and we expect FNS to continue to measure and publish 
these data for all States and to emphasize their importance in 
conducting program oversight. The same is true for enforcing clear 
standards. We are concerned that FNS is not following its own guidance 
with respect to how it will follow up with states whose timeliness has 
fallen below established Federal standards. This is important for the 
agency to address.
  Another provision involving program integrity involves when States 
may follow up with households to seek additional information based on a 
data match. The provision identifies the circumstances under which such 
follow up is allowed and when it is prohibited. The conferees intend 
this provision to codify FNS's recent regulation of January 6, 2017, at 
7 C.F.R. 273.12(c)(3). We do not intend for USDA to issue any new 
regulation beyond simply the addition of the new National Accuracy 
Clearinghouse to the list of matches that might require action.
  Another provision in the program integrity area changes how SNAP 
benefits are treated when households have not accessed them recently. 
The provision allows States to move SNAP benefits ``offline'' after 3 
months of inactivity instead of 6 months and requires benefits be 
``expunged'' or completely taken away after 9 months instead of 12 
months. Because inactivity in households' SNAP accounts is often the 
result of a misunderstanding, the provision requires that households be 
notified 30 days before benefits are scheduled to be expunged and offer 
an opportunity for the household to request that any benefits that have 
been moved offline be swiftly restored. On balance, my expectation is 
that this provision will improve households' access to benefits because 
households will be better informed.
  In our negotiations on the SNAP provisions of the farm bill, the 
conferees spent substantial time debating the SNAP employment and 
training program and proposals to add requirements in SNAP that would 
take food assistance away from households that fail to meet harsh work 
requirements. I am proud that this bill does not include the House's 
proposals to severely restrict waivers from the existing harsh 3-month 
time limit and the House bill's new requirements that would have taken 
food assistance away from families with children and older adults who 
struggle to find work. This was no accident. The conferees rejected 
these proposals. In fact, the Senate resoundingly rejected on a 
bipartisan basis an amendment that included many of these harsh 
changes. The administration should take note of this and follow 
congressional intent and not attempt to advance an inconsistent agenda 
through rulemaking that is not supported by the law we just passed.
  Rather than harsh new requirements, the conference agreement focused 
on helping families get back to work the right way. The conference 
agreement will strengthen State flexibility to design employment and 
training systems that meet local workforce needs and labor market 
conditions. We added workforce partnership arrangements, which could 
involve private employers, trade groups that represent such employers, 
or nonprofit organizations to the options available to States and 
individuals for meeting SNAP employment and training and work 
requirements. We also focus additional funding provided in the bill for 
employment and training on programs with a proven track record based on 
the pilots from the 2014 farm bill and on populations that face 
substantial barriers, such as individuals who were incarcerated in the 
past, workers age 50 and older, and those at risk of multigenerational 
poverty.
  In order to help employment and training participants succeed in 
their placements, we now expect States to include case management as a 
component in all States' employment and training programs. We envision 
that States will continue to have wide latitude in what counts as case 
management, and we intend that case management be a resource to 
employment and training participants, not an extra hoop for 
participants to comply with to satisfy their employment and training 
obligation. Not every participant will need case management, and not 
every component of a State's employment and training program must offer 
case management. We also revise the job search component under 
employment and training to add a supervision requirement, but 
anticipate that States will be creative in developing innovative models 
for supervision that are not burdensome on participants, for example, 
by using technology to include online job search, or other automated 
and remote options. We recognize that States will need time to update 
their employment and training plans and build capacity to roll out new 
approaches, so we expect FNS will provide adequate time for States to 
transition to compliance with the new requirements. I should note that, 
while self-initiated job search may no longer be a standalone component 
within employment and training, it is not disallowed as a part of 
another component. For example, if a job training program offers 12 
hours of job training and 8 hours of job search, this should

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still be allowable under this change. The conference report also does 
not preclude self-initiated job search that is not specifically managed 
within the SNAP employment and training.
  The Agriculture Committee has a long history of bipartisan oversight 
of SNAP, and every farm bill includes provisions that strengthen SNAP 
by taking advantage of new technologies and other advancements in other 
areas of the human services field. This farm bill is no exception. For 
example, we include provisions to adjust SNAP's electronic benefit 
transfer, EBT, program to account for new technologies like mobile and 
online payments and to add flexibility for farmers' markets. While we 
recognize the need for SNAP to evolve to survive in the modern 
marketplace, it is equally important that we continue to maintain 
program integrity. The Secretary must maintain the ability to monitor 
retailers and ensure they are not engaging in fraudulent activities. 
Retailers without a physical storefront may require new approaches to 
oversight, and FNS should continue to work with retailers and Congress 
to ensure appropriate controls are in place.
  EBT is a critical link in the SNAP program for delivering benefits to 
eligible families and our retailers, and EBT contractors are important 
partners. The Senate-passed farm bill included requirements on USDA and 
GAO to conduct broad reviews of SNAP EBT, including transfer-related 
fees, equipment issues, data security, and customer service, especially 
the unfortunate increased frequency of systems outages. We also 
required USDA to issue regulations and guidance on these issues based 
on the findings from the studies. Although we were not able to include 
these provisions in the final conference agreement, both USDA and GAO 
have the authority to engage in these activities without specific 
statutory direction, and I urge them to do so.
  Child support collections is another area where we determined that 
the proper course of action is for the Secretary to obtain more 
information. The House included a sweeping provision to require States 
to mandate cooperation with child support enforcement as a condition of 
SNAP eligibility. While we strongly support custodial and noncustodial 
parents financially supporting their children, we rejected the mandate 
out of concern that taking away food assistance would do more harm than 
good for children and that the mandate would be costly for States and 
the Federal Government. Instead, we direct the Secretary to collect 
evidence on the impact on families and children and the cost for States 
and the Federal Government. We also want information on the experiences 
in States that have adopted the mandate, those that rejected it, and on 
some of the practical issues such as how States guarantee a robust 
determination of good cause for noncompliance. It is key that the 
Secretary in carrying out this study collect information on those who 
would be dissuaded from participating in SNAP as a result of the 
mandate. Research on those who do not receive SNAP as a result of a 
policy change can be difficult to obtain, but because our concern about 
the provision relates to the impact on children whose parents are 
afraid to participate in SNAP because of a fear of domestic violence or 
out of other concerns about their relationship with another parent--for 
example, when grandparents care for grandchildren--the Secretary must 
seek to paint a full picture of the impact such a change would have on 
children. We also instruct the Secretary to examine what alternative 
options are available in this area that would achieve similar goals but 
without putting food assistance for children at risk.
  In addition to these critical issues within SNAP, I also want to note 
that we made some critical improvements to programs to support 
beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers, organic producers and 
local food systems, including providing permanent mandatory baseline 
funding. This important step will ensure these programs continue to 
support the next generation of sustainable farmers. The conference 
report also directs Secretary to have the Agriculture Marketing Service 
and Rural Business Cooperative Service work together to implement the 
Local Agriculture Market Program, using the agencies' respective 
structures and expertise to deliver an effective program. One important 
aspect of the Local Agriculture Market Program is food safety 
assistance, an area where the primary expertise at USDA resides with-in 
the Agriculture Marketing Service. I would ask USDA to ensure food 
safety components of the Local Agriculture Market Program be 
coordinated between the agencies, but be led by Agriculture Marketing 
Service, who has the most expertise.
  This farm bill was truly historic, both in its broad level of 
bipartisan support and also in its steps toward supporting the great 
diversity of American agriculture. I also believe it was noteworthy 
that we were able to overcome strong partisan attacks on food 
assistance to produce a bill in the bipartisan tradition this committee 
maintains continues to protect the family safety net in a bipartisan 
way. I hope the administration follows our lead and rejects harmful 
attacks on food assistance for families needing short term support.

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